


A Whirlwind Inside of My Head

by Longdaysjourney



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Human Disaster Elektra Natchios, Human Disaster Matt Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:08:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23802097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Longdaysjourney/pseuds/Longdaysjourney
Summary: She’s seen him on campus of course – usually alone, walking unerringly from the dorms to classes and back again, his cane sweeping wide arcs in front of him. He doesn’t seem to deviate much from a handful of prescribed paths – dorm, class, library, dining hall: lather, rinse, repeat. What a bore, she thinks, chuckling softly to no one in particular.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock/Elektra Natchios
Comments: 16
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short three-shot, exploring Elektra's character - and her first encounters with Matt. 
> 
> I didn't mean to write this - I wanted to practice looking at Matt from an outside perspective. I'm taking a non-fiction writing workshop that I should be writing for instead, but I couldn't resist putting words down for this experimental (for me) short piece. 
> 
> Sorry for inflicting my therapy on innocent bystanders!

She’s seen him on campus of course – usually alone, walking unerringly from the dorms to classes and back again, his cane sweeping wide arcs in front of him. He doesn’t seem to deviate much from a handful of prescribed paths – dorm, class, library, dining hall: lather, rinse, repeat. What a bore, she thinks, chuckling softly to no one in particular.

Once, she came across him reclined on a blanket on the patch of green lawn in front of the law school, broken stalks of grass dotting his jeans. His arm was slung congenially around that friend of his with the shaggy hair and the booming voice, his eyes shielded by dark glasses. They were laughing at something a third student was saying. 

She noticed how the shaggy one’s attention was trained on the girl’s painted lips, his head turned away from his friend. They all might have been a little drunk. 

As she walked past them in her impossibly high heels – not the most practical footwear for a coed, she’d be the first to admit – she could have sworn the boy registered her presence. Something in the way he suddenly became very still, his body tensing, attention shifted minutely in her direction.

Stick had said that he – Matthew – had special abilities. Elektra trained with Stick for years, she’s seen special abilities, even possesses a few. It would take a lot to impress her. Still, she resolves to be more careful – watch from a distance, diligently assess before attempting first contact. 

\----  


  
Nothing of note happens for several weeks. Despite her training, despite Stick’s reminders ringing in her ears to _be patient_ , she nearly gives up on surveillance in her need to do something. 

She’s been dutifully attending classes – mostly in languages she already speaks, her adopted father had spared no expense to ensure she received an education befitting a diplomat’s daughter – but the idleness is wearing on her. Matthew Murdock appears to be nothing more than what he seems – a studious, polite young man who’s overcome hardship and adversity to study amongst the brightest students in the country. 

Elektra's impatient. She just wants to get on with it, but an opening never materializes. It's challenging, she's finding, to insert herself into such a regimented life, its boundaries entrenched and immutable.

Sometime before the first semester ends, however, as classes wind down and the campus feels suddenly deserted, its students squirreled away to study for finals, the boy doesn’t emerge from his dorm room for three days. 

It’s unusual enough that she stakes out a spot under the cold, stone archway leading from the dorm to the dining hall – where she can perch just out of view behind a marble bust of some long-forgotten city dignitary, the edges worn smooth over time.

From her current vantage point, she can see Matthew’s roommate, his shoulder-length hair tied in a stunted ponytail at the nape of his neck. He’s slumped over, the small of his back against the brick of the exterior wall, whispering to his companion, a blonde with sharp, pinched features. 

“I just don’t know what to do, Marce,” he says, his voice rising in a low whine, his hand worrying the scruff on his chin. “I’m getting legit worried here. Matt hasn’t come out to eat or exercise or anything in three days.”

A momentary flash of impatience, before the girl’s features soften. “Look, Foggy, if you’re really concerned, you can tell your RA or maybe one of the professors,” she says. Her voice is soothing, but her posture is rigid and her arms are crossed over her chest – clearly, this conundrum has already eaten up too much of her time. 

“Besides,” she nudges him with a playful push, “Murdock can take care of himself – he’s a Hell’s Kitchen boy, remember?” 

Foggy hums doubtfully in response, but allows himself to be led to the dining hall and out of earshot.

Several hours later and Elektra’s still sitting there, pretending to flip through her well-thumbed copy of Saramago’s “Ensaio sobre a Cegueira” while keeping one eye out on what she knows are the only two entrances to the dorm. 

Finally, her patience is rewarded when the door to the closer entrance swings open. Matt is being dragged, reluctant, by his roommate in the direction of the Student Center, which is located a few paces along the Quad – a loose formation of academic halls bookended by iron gates. 

“Come on, Matt,” Foggy says, tugging him by the elbow and steadying him as he half-stumbles, nearly face-planting on the walkway, “Let’s get something to eat and then I can tell you about this party I think we should crash.”

Oh right, Elektra remembers with a start.... the faculty party to honor her father, who’s donated sizeable sums to the university over the last several years, is scheduled for tomorrow night at the Vice Provost’s house, located just on the edge of campus. These events were always so tiresome, filled with bored socialites or deadly dull academics, all hoping to curry favor -- some for sport, others for status or power or resources.

She had been planning to skip the affair, but if Matthew is planning on going, this might be her chance to make some headway. After all, the sooner she manages to lure him away from this bucolic trap, the sooner she’ll get back to what really matters…to who really matters. 

The memory still pains her – that day that Stick left her, as easily as discarding a dog at the pound. How strange that cavernous house was, well-appointed and tasteful, but empty. She had felt emptier still, holding herself stiffly, uncomfortable in her flowered, brocade dress while Stick calmly walked away. Like it was nothing; like she was nothing. 

Still, she remembered Stick’s parting words and she obeyed. 

Always a quick study, she deftly assumed the trappings and accoutrements of privilege. How to act, how to speak, how to persuade in the way only the very rich – who lack the stink of desperation, of want – could. Biding her time, but continuing her training. Luckily, her father was easily persuaded that an education in capoeira and other martial arts was not incompatible with more classic pursuits like ballet or piano. 

And then one day, as suddenly as he had disappeared, Stick returned.

Now she finds herself, improbably, at a normal American university. Her attention currently occupied – trained squarely on Matthew who, somewhere between the beginning of her vigil and now, ceased to be “the boy”. 

He really does look awful, she realizes suddenly, an unexpected ache settling in her chest. The dark sweep of his hair, usually tamed into some semblance of order, is unruly. His face is slack, mouth set in a narrow line and eyes inscrutable behind dark glasses. 

Most uncharacteristically (at least from the sampling she’s drawn from in the last several weeks), he’s clumsy – his cane clasped and held aloft uselessly in one hand while the other grips his roommate’s elbow as if he’s afraid he’d drift away without the anchor. Foggy strains a bit under the weight.

Elektra wonders if Foggy knows. If Matthew had confided to his sunny, guileless friend: that ten years ago today, he had knelt by his father’s side as the blood drained from his body. That even before his uncontrollable keening had begun, before his hands ghosted over the beloved, unrecognizable features of his father’s face, he knew – from the unbearable stillness at the center of his world – that his father was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elektra regards her reflection dispassionately in the mirror. 
> 
> She’s well aware of her effect on men (and a fair amount of women), the looks – some surreptitious, some openly leering – often directed her way. Although her quarry tonight doesn’t rely on sight, she nonetheless smooths her dark hair, pinning a heavy curl behind her left ear, but leaves the remaining strands loose. She straightens imperceptibly, her spine a long elegant line, slim shoulders bare in a burgundy silk sheath.

Elektra regards her reflection dispassionately in the mirror. 

She’s well aware of her effect on men (and a fair amount of women), the looks – some surreptitious, some openly leering – often directed her way. Although her quarry tonight doesn’t rely on sight, she nonetheless smooths her dark hair, pinning a heavy curl behind her left ear, but leaves the remaining strands loose. She straightens imperceptibly, her spine a long elegant line, slim shoulders bare in a burgundy silk sheath.

From a drawer in the vanity, she plucks out a tiny crystal vial, unstoppers it carefully and touches the open neck to the underside of her wrists. The faint scent of lotus blossoms momentarily suffuses the air and then dies away, but if Stick’s debriefing is accurate, Matthew will be able to detect it. It’ll intrigue him. That’s the idea at any rate.

One last touch – a stack of gold bangles etched with intricate scrollwork, a souvenir from her last trip to Indonesia while on a mission for the Chaste. The other souvenir from that ill-fated outing, a scar from a Sai blade’s glancing encounter with her ribs, was still stiff eight months later. 

Abruptly, she shakes herself from her reverie. The glowing dial of the clock on her nightstand indicates that it’s time. Taking one final look at her reflection, she steps outside and into a waiting cab.

\---

The party is already well underway by the time she reaches the Vice Provost’s mansion, the heavy French doors propped ajar to reveal a wedge of soft light coming from the interior. 

Once inside, she brushes past a clump of people gathered around a spiral staircase to head straight for the bar, which is thankfully unoccupied – an uninterrupted stretch of burnished wood, warm to the touch. Its central position in the main drawing room makes it the ideal perch from where she can observe the party’s revelers, who periodically suspend their conversation to snag canapes topped with caviar or mini-skewers of plump shrimp from traveling trays held aloft by servers in white waistcoats. 

She taps her manicured nails against the lacquered wood and the sound echoes off the high ceilings, catching the bartender’s attention. “A Vodka Martini, please.” No reason she can’t enjoy a drink while assessing the crowd, but she ignores the interested smile spreading slowly over the guy’s face.

Within moments, the drink is set in front of her, a corkscrew of lemon rind resting against the rim of the glass. She breathes out through her nose and tries to school her heartbeat, as Stick taught her, until it settles into a steady cadence. 

Almost lazily, she starts to play with her bangles on her right wrist, lifting them up and letting them fall, clinking softly as they make contact. She takes one languorous sip from her drink. If Matthew is anywhere within his earshot, she’s confident he’ll come running.

 _There._ Almost beyond view, some commotion, voices kept low for propriety’s sake. She recognizes the cane, the mop of hair, tamed now, and the dark glasses. A security guard is gripping him firmly by the elbow; he starts to usher Matthew out. 

“He’s with me,” she says casually. The guard’s curt apology barely registers, instead she’s watching Matthew as he approaches. One hand is wrapped around his cane while the other juts out, a tad uncertain, as he feels his way to her side. 

He cleans up rather nicely, she notes appreciatively – even if the overall look is rather uninspired. She’d be hard pressed to describe the jacket he’s wearing, for example, if asked about it a few days later. But behind the starched shirt and the forgettable tie, his body has a firm definition to it and he can’t quite hide the power it contains – at least not from her, who knows to look for it. 

And the wingtips – now those are a delight. Slightly scuffed, but obviously recently shined, with delicate designs sketched out in pin-sized perforations along the toe. She bets there is a story behind those shoes – something sentimental perhaps or revelatory or simply a bargain bin find in the depths of a dusty attic. Whatever it is, a plan is starting to form in her mind – an opening volley.

With his hands hovering over the bar, he orders a drink, Macallan Neat, for himself and a refill for her, identifying correctly the contents of her glass. She’s simultaneously annoyed and impressed, but she also needs to keep him off balance, so she intercepts the order and requests a tumbler of tequila instead. 

Undeterred, he starts to thank her for intervening on his behalf with the security guard, muttering some platitude about how difficult it is to find good security – as if he would know the intricacies of that particular challenge, but she cuts him off. 

“Nice shoes”, she says, looking down at his feet and injecting as much withering disdain in her voice that her many years living among the jet set have taught her. “Wingtips. Good call. Shine them yourself?”

A nervous laugh, he’s taken aback – _Good_ , she thinks, feeling almost predatory.

He shifts from one foot to the other, takes a sip from his glass, swallows hard. “How’d you know?’

She scoffs, turning her gaze away from him - it's a dismissal, “You’re not exactly a tough read.” 

He perseveres, challenging her to sum him up, which she proceeds to do – she imagines – with devastating effect. Of course, with Stick’s intel covering the span of his life from age 12 onward, even she has to acknowledge how unfairly asymmetric their positions are. 

As she delivers her assessment, her diction clipped and precise, she notices he pales when she mentions his desire to belong somewhere, with someone. A low blow, she can't help but think, particularly given the anniversary he just observed. Compassion is at odds with her mission, however; she struggles to banish it.

The guilt almost derails her momentum before she rights herself with one of her strengths – her sway with seduction. She takes a step closer to him. “And now your mind is racing,” she breathes. “You’re wondering what you can possibly say or do to keep me on the line, because the last thing that you want is to spend the rest of the evening with that scotch and with that shaggy haired friend of yours.” 

Her efforts are rewarded with another nervous laugh, a quick sweep of his lips with his tongue, and yet again, a sip of his drink. She may not be able to hear heartbeats, but she’s certain that his is racing right now. 

At the end of her spiel, she turns back to her drink, curious to see what he’ll say. 

A pause, and then another return to his glass – but a deep draught this time, to gather his courage. “I think the game’s just beginning,” he starts, his voice low and rough, conspiratorial. “See, I think you were dying on the vine of this tight-ass party because Daddy’s money can’t buy you the one thing you really need.”

Despite herself, she finds herself leaning in, “And what is that?”

He cants to the side, he knows he’s triumphed. “The unexpected," he pronounces, a genuine grin finally materializing on his face. 

She smiles, looks up at him appraisingly. “Maybe you’re not so dumb,” she says, aiming for grudging acknowledgment. 

“Elektra Natchios.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I misspoke earlier, I think there may be one more chapter left in this old girl.
> 
> It's fun to write in Elektra's POV. I imagine the thoughts I ascribe to her in Elodie Yung's killer accent.
> 
> This is mostly a re-hash of the Scene in Season 2/Episode 5 (Kinbaku) with a few character notes dropped in.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elektra is sitting at the table, her legs tucked under the crisp white tablecloth, sipping from a glass of merlot the waiter set down seconds ago. She’s not accustomed to waiting and she’s more than a little annoyed. Around her, the melodic strains of something classical plays at low volume. She barely registers the hum of conversation, punctuated by an occasional tinkle of glass, in the background.

Elektra is sitting at the table, her legs tucked under the crisp white tablecloth, sipping from a glass of merlot the waiter set down seconds ago. She’s not accustomed to waiting and she’s more than a little annoyed. Around her, the melodic strains of something classical plays at low volume. She barely registers the hum of conversation, punctuated by an occasional tinkle of glass, in the background. 

In those first few weeks after meeting Matthew at the vice provost’s house, her plans had stalled spectacularly. After she dropped him off at the dorms, the deep rumble of that sweet engine shattering the quiet, she thought that he’d call the next day and that by week’s end, she’d be securely situated in his life. From there, it would be a simple matter to cleave off his few connections and draw him back towards Stick and their cause.

But he didn’t call the next day or the day after that. A week passed before he called, his voice sheepish over the line, to ask her to coffee at the café across from campus. 

Gamely, she met him there. But he had been diffident, too polite. The heat of their first meeting dissipated in the light of day, lost among the milling students and the whir of the espresso machine. It didn’t help that she was dressed in a turtleneck, which covered the long line of her elegant neck, to ward off the chill of the late autumn day. 

She knew he was blind, but other than knowing that his senses could somehow compensate, wearing a turtleneck just put her in a certain non-seductive frame of mind. Despite herself, she felt the tension in her body loosening, content to just listen to him prattle on about his classes. He was so earnest, so naïve – she mused – despite the horrors he’s already had to endure. 

But there was steel beneath that affable reserve. She heard it surface, now and again, before the almost painful sincerity smoothed out its edges again. And his voice – the round shape of his vowels, the way it sometimes dropped down a register, suddenly quiet and intimate – was more disarming than she’d like to admit. 

Besides, she could play the solicitous new love interest if that’s what he wanted. “So – what do you do for fun?” 

“Fun?” his eyebrows shot up quizzically over the tops of his glasses, as if she’d asked him if he’d been to the moon. 

She had to bite back a laugh. “You know… something other than classes or studying or thinking about studying.” Her fingertips formed a steeple on the table between them and she leaned forward, “What do you do to unwind?” 

“Well…” he said slowly, as if he was thinking about his response, “there’s an old boxing gym down in Hell’s Kitchen I like to go to.” He stirred the contents of his cup, his dark hair flopping over his forehead. Elektra resisted the sudden urge to brush it back.

Instead, she asked, a sly smile in her voice, “Can I come sometime?” 

That little excursion to Matthew’s old gym had been very productive. Even now, alone at her table in a restaurant full of people, Elektra can’t help but flush at the memory.

She had known of course about the gym, that Matthew still frequented the place where his father had worked out – but only after hours, when a blind man could train as if he had been taught by a master from a secret society of ninja warriors, without drawing unwanted attention to himself.

They had broken in – or, more precisely, she had broken in – pushing open the door and stepping over the shards of glass with Matthew trailing behind her. She saw how he had almost imperceptibly relaxed once he entered, how the stiffness in his carriage retreated by degrees. This was obviously hallowed ground for him. 

He had kept up the ruse though, laughing nervously when she suggested that they spar in the dusty ring in the center of the gym. But when she entered the ring, slipping between the sagging ropes that cordoned off the space, he followed, hands held out uncertainly in front of him.

Then she aimed a kick straight at his head, he ducked, the pretense fell away, and she finally claimed him.

***

Elektra glances impatiently at her watch and then at her now-empty glass. She pushes back her chair and is halfway to standing when a bouquet of red roses, wrapped in wet plastic, flops on the table in front of her, scattering wayward drops on her dress. 

Matthew looks a bit bedraggled too, struggling with the cane and umbrella and chair all at once. Taking pity on him, Elektra extends one stiletto-heeled foot to slide the chair out. 

“Roses, Matthew?” she says, shooting him a withering glance that’s probably lost on him. “Really? How perfectly cliché.”

She reaches over, lifts the bouquet off the table and deposits it on the floor next to where his cane is propped up. “Besides, didn’t anyone teach you never to keep a lady waiting?”

He at least has the grace to look apologetic. He sits and adjusts his glasses, clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I stopped by a florist on the way over. I – I thought you might like them.” 

It’s interesting, how unsure he sounds, Elektra notes with amusement. There’s barely a trace of the self-assured bravado that she managed to unearth that day at Fogwell’s. 

Slyly, she reaches out to tip her wine glass over the edge of the table. An almost comical look of surprise precedes his deft rescue, when he smoothly snags the glass’ stem before it tumbles to the ground.

Elektra raises an eyebrow, “I need to go to the ladies room for a moment.” Her heartrate rises and she allows the heat of her arousal to seep from her pores. “I wouldn’t mind some company,” she adds. 

Surprise, fleeting, crosses Matthew’s face before it’s replaced by something else – something inscrutable. 

Without a backward glance to see if he was following, Elektra gets up abruptly and leaves.

***

The brakes on the car screech as Elektra pulls up to her building – her hands, caked with dried blood, tremble where they grip the steering wheel. 

The whole enterprise failed – Matthew refused to kill his father’s killer no matter how much she pleaded with him to end it, panting with adrenaline and excitement. 

She remembers the look of shock on his face, the fog clearing as his fists, raw and bleeding, clenched and unclenched helplessly. She remembers the swollen, unconscious body of Roscoe Sweeny lashed to the chair, and the feeling of despair crashing over her when Matthew took a step back and then another. 

Worse was the expression in his unguarded eyes – blind, roving, but reflecting the horror she’s managed, a long time ago, to bury several layers deep. Wordlessly, he stumbled past the foyer and the door beyond it. 

When she could no longer hear Matthew’s retreating steps, when she was sure he had ventured outside the boundaries of the property, she completed her mission – cursing softly under her breath as she cut the man’s throat, felt the warm blood spill over her fingers. 

In her apartment she empties drawers, clears shelves – stuffs their contents hastily in a small suitcase and closes the latch. The place will remain under her father’s name, but she wishes to annihilate all evidence of her occupation, all traces of her existence. She wants nothing more than to disappear.

Before she leaves to make her rendezvous with Stick, she makes one ill-advised stop. She knows it’s dangerous, that it exposes her, that Stick would disapprove. She does it anyway.

When she steps into the dorm building, students are scattered in the halls in various states of consciousness. Some are fighting the effects of a night of overindulgence, others are exhausted from studying. Either way, they barely cast a second glance her way. 

Finally, she reaches a nondescript door, turns the knob and enters. The room inside is dark. Slowly her eyes adjust to the gloom. She walks over to the bed near the window and gives the lump buried beneath the blankets a gentle shake. Some fumbling, as the lump shifts, and then Matthew’s roommate is blinking up at her, uncomprehending. 

“I need to leave, Foggy,” she starts, an unfamiliar note of hesitation creeping into her voice. She’s barely spoken more than two words to him in all the time she’s known him. “I can’t explain why.” She waits a beat, for the awareness to filter in before continuing, “Please take care of Matthew for me?”

Before he can respond, she’s already past the threshold of their room, barreling towards the building exit. Suddenly, the sheer ordinariness of that setting seems to mock her - tantalizing her with something she never realized she wanted. The ghost of soft lips and the gentle press of heat against her skin.

The cold outside is bracing, it helps to shock her back to herself. Already she feels her priorities rearranging, the college co-ed persona sloughing off like a unneeded, unwanted shell.

Matthew was a mission, nothing more. 

The second time she repeats it softly to herself, she almost starts to believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not completely satisfied with this, but it's been hanging out in draft form for a couple of weeks while I've been working on some nonfiction essays for my workshop class. Hope it's an okay ending for anyone who might be reading this.


End file.
